How to be forward learning

What is forward leaning? To me, it means taking initiative, being bold, carrying through change in a manner that inspires and is empathetic. There are many negative connotations to being forward-leaning, in addition to the obvious risk of failure. It's possible to be perceived as brash, thoughtless, or a risk-taker without accurate measure. So how do you remain forward leaning and pathbreaking, while avoiding the potential drama that comes with?

The short answer is, you don't.

You have to enjoy taking all the tiny pieces of the puzzle apart and find new ways to put it back together. Shave a few edges, shove a few edges, convince them all to get along. Account for human beings and their response to change. Think about the "why".

Here are some ways to break down the process of leaning into the future:

1. Deepen and evolve your own subject matter: This is the fundamental basis of innovation. If you don't know your subject matter in and out and sideways, you cannot innovate. I remember sitting in my Noob Orientation on day one at Facebook and listening to Chris Cox tie Marshall McLuhan's communications theory to the future of human communication and Facebook's strategy. He weaved his knowledge of engineering, with mass communications theory (my Bachelor's degree subject from 15 years ago) and his ideas for the future of social media. His passion for his subject matter was apparent. It was obvious that he'd spent a lot of time thinking about it and educating himself. There was no way but to leave that room inspired myself. Here was a product officer I could get behind. Without his subject matter expertise, all his talk would have been hot air. It's the easiest way to lose credibility before you turn the first page of the book, if you don't have finely-honed subject matter expertise.
2. Know your organisation and appetite: Almost every single role I've ever had in my career, I've been the first person in seat with that job title and an ambiguous set of responsibilities. My first 90 days, if not more, have always been spent meeting people from across the company and understanding their motivation and mindset. I onboarded in a 100% remote environment in my current role. What didn't change for me was the time invested in getting to know my new company, my colleagues across various departments, their motivation and mindset. This is true for any new role you move into, regardless of whether the role has existed before or not. The best feedback you can hear before you hit your one year mark is that your colleagues feel like you've been here forever. It's validation of the fact that you've spent time learning about them, your company and its thresholds of acceptance on various themes. Spend time speaking to your company's leadership and to the folks running the show on the ground, all the way to the entry-level positions. Know their perspectives, if you want your own perspectives to find acceptance.
3. Develop a clear vision: The Mad Hatter says in Alice in Wonderland, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." The quintessential Hatter style of saying that if you don't have a clear vision of the end state and adequate measures of success, then it doesn't matter what path you take and what choices you make. Only if you're very lucky, you'll end up achieving a modicum of positive growth. In most cases, this is the main source of failure. Make it your 90-day goal to ensure you have a vision for where you need to be. Discuss it with your vertical leadership, your peers, your team and your key stakeholders to ensure it aligns with the overall vision of the company. If it doesn't, try to find out why. Is it because your vision is too big and maybe a little scary or is it because there's a fundamental flaw that you're not seeing yet? Once you go through the steps of clarifying your vision, believe in it and own it. If you don't believe in your vision, no one else will. And finally, remain agile. The world changes and it is sometimes futile to hold on to fundamental assumptions that may no longer be valid.
4. Explain and take questions: We've been raised to think, in most cultures, that to deepen our understanding of something, we must ask questions. Not always true. There's a time to ask questions and listen. Then there's a time to explain and take questions. Questions scare us at a fundamental level. We think there's something wrong with us if we receive too many questions. They can be seen as a challenge. And yet, this is not the case at all. So you've invested in your SME, learnt your operating environment and built a vision. Now it's time to talk about it. Take the time to explain your idea - over and over again, for as long as it takes. Take all the questions. What are people really asking you?
5. Break your vision down into phases: Why terrify someone when you can convince them that something is achievable? My fatal flaw as a young analyst was that my passion was terrifying to people, and often that was the case because the end state was just unimaginable for many people. I was often frustrated with how discussions wouldn't progress because I couldn't get folks to see my point of view and they couldn't figure me out. Oh youth! Over time, I learned to become comfortable with the fact that not everyone would make the same logical leap as me and sometimes not at the same pace as me, and that is okay. And then, when I learned to listen (see step 4, I still struggle with this sometimes), it made me realise there were other ways to do the same thing, that would make the end goal more palatable. And so I learned to break my thoughts down into phases. Improved project management skills helped me make that journey. I learned how to structure phases better and how to communicate project phases better. This has made all the difference.
6. Present results: Nothing, I repeat nothing, is as much a force multiplier as success. Being able to present results and outcomes effectively and successfully, helps build incremental credibility for projects, particularly as you navigate phases. In order to measure the success of your outcomes, you must know what that looks like before you launch a change management project phase. One of the first questions I learnt when I came to my current role was - what does success look like for this phase/project? I work for a company that walks the project management talk. And it feels like all of my career experience so far was preparing me for this role in this moment. Now, when I'm thinking about a forward-leaning project, I think about what excellent looks like and what good looks like. I do this so that I don't let perfect be the enemy of good (citing Richard Gould here). Knowing this allows me to think about how to measure these outcomes. Results build momentum and buy-in.
7. Own your fear: It is terrifying to be at the forefront of sweeping changes. Sometimes, I look at ideas and they scare me, presenting them to people scares me. How I may be perceived for suggesting something audacious scares me. Over time, I have realised I just have to embrace this feeling as a starting point and grow into it. I have also realised I may not be liked in the short term sometimes but it works to prioritise long-term respect over short-term liking. I have realised that surrounding myself with really smart people, who challenge my own thinking and who know more than I do about the world and like and how things work, makes me a better person. I have found that in order to be truly audacious and take risks, you have to also be secure in who you are. You may not be like that other amazing person you know but you're you and that is enough. I have learnt to become okay with being corrected in public and being utterly wrong about things. I have learnt to let go of my burning cheeks and former ego. I take pride in who I am and what I do but try not to let the fear of being wrong, sounding stupid or being challenged stand in my way. Owning some of these fears and leaning on my trusted network has helped me lean into the future, rather than holding on to some misguided notion of self importance today. My own ideas excite me and I want to be able to do things with them - passionately, persistently and patiently.